In the past couple of years, flagships have started to come without dedicated headphone jacks. What was once considered as an irreplaceable part of a smartphone, now is an expendable feature. Missing headphone jack could only mean two things: you’d have to shift to a USB Type-C adapter/headphones, or get a good pair of Bluetooth earphones. Naturally, with the increase in demand from flagship users, we have seen a recent surge in Bluetooth earphones and many of them have turned out to be quite good.

I recently had the opportunity to review the Meizu POP True Wireless Bluetooth earphones (TW50) and it was quite impressive. Given that I have been using the OnePlus Bullets Wireless for some time, the Meizu POP was a pleasant addition to my affordable (just $69.99 w/ coupon below) wireless earphones collection. In many ways, its superior to the Bullets Wireless, but there are a few things that you have to keep in mind if you are planning to shift to this earphones as your daily driver. Read my complete review of the Meizu POP TW50 Wireless Bluetooth earphones below.

Meizu POP TW50 Earphones Design

The Meizu POP TW50 earphones have a non-intrusive design. Unlike other Bluetooth earphones with a neckband, the POP is truly wireless featuring just two earphones that snugly fit in your ears. The fit is firm, so even if you are running or involved in any activity, the chances of the earphones falling out of your ears are very slim. Note that each earphone weighs just 5.8 grams! So you’d hardly notice its presence while running or during any other activity.

The POP comes in just one color option — all white.

There are two major parts of the Meizu POP earphones. First is the pair of earphones which go in your ears. The other half consists of the Magnetic charging case. This is where the company tries to impress, first by including Qi-based Wireless charging support and second, by using magnets to ensure that the earphones neatly tuck themselves in the case in the right position and immediately starts charging.

Talking about the magnetic charging case/box, it also features a premium all-white design with the Meizu logo up front. There are four LED indicators showing you the amount of charge remaining. You can charge the earphones up to four times with this case, and it’s quite evident from the indicators as well. There’s a button at the back (which btw is very easy to miss) which shows you the charge left in the box.

The box is magnetic and there’s a kind of satisfaction you get every time you see it open and close. Inside, the case has two slots for the two earphones. Note that you have to place the earphones in their correct slots in order for them to fit in perfectly. The slots are magnetic as well, so the earphones smoothly slide into their positions and start charging. Overall, the experience is flawless and satisfying.

Coming to the pair of earphones, once again you have to be careful about which earphones goes into which ear. For convenience, both the earphones are marked with ‘L’ and ‘R’ labels. Both of them have a snug fit and are very comfortable for extended use.

At the start of this review, I mentioned that the Meizu POP earphones had a non-intrusive design. I came to this conclusion after taking a close look at its notification light as well. The blue colored light on the earphones lights up only once when you take them out of the case (they turn on automatically) or keep them inside (they turn off instantly). Also, if you keep the earphones disconnected outside the box for some time, they switch off automatically. You have to long press both the earphones individually to turn them on again. Another instance where the blue light comes up is when you are pairing them to a smartphone or smartwatch. In short, the light won’t interfere in your day to day use.

Meizu POP TW50 Earphones Sound Quality

I know people are different when it comes to their music preferences. So, right at the start, I ‘ll say that I’m not a very big fan of bass heavy headphones. I like the perfect mix of highs and lows with a good amount of bass so that I get to enjoy a wide range of music. In this regard, the Meizu POP doesn’t disappoint at all.

The POP comes with a rich stereo sound and each note is crisp and clear. It’s definitely better than the OnePlus Bullets Wireless when it comes to sound quality and when you directly compare the two side by side, the OnePlus earphones does sound a bit hollow.

The bass is good, it’s not very heavy which is something I prefer. This means I get to enjoy the strong mids and treble. The earphone is able to play a good range of sounds with ease and I haven’t really seen them crack even on the highest volume levels. In fact, I was always happy to keep the volume level just above the middle as it was loud enough on most occasions. Further, the earphones have pretty good noise cancellation which means you can enjoy high-quality music even when you are in a noisy surrounding.

Overall, in terms of sound quality, you cannot go wrong with the Meizu POP Wireless earphones. I was very much impressed by its sound quality and despite its tiny form factor, the POP manages to impress you with its rich sound output. For its price, you’d definitely be impressed.

Meizu POP TW50 Earphones Usage

The Meizu POP TW50 earphones are very easy to use. You just have to take out the earphones out of its charging box and both the earphones switch on immediately and are ready to pair. If you have paired the headphones with your smartphone before, they connect to the phone immediately when you take them out. I haven’t had a single issue when it comes to the process of pairing.

So, the moment you take them out of the case, you are good to go. I have used the earphones in a number of scenarios and never have they failed to impress. Be it for running on the road, hitting the gym, or even listening to music right beside a construction site, the POP turned out to be my perfect partner. I’m impressed with its noise cancellation and it has actually helped me have a really good time even in relatively noisy environments.

As mentioned before, the earphones have a really firm fit and only once did one of the units come out loose from my ear. But that was when I was running and I hadn’t really pushed it in firmly. Overall, I can say that the earphones are designed in a way to ensure that it doesn’t fall off your ears easily.

While the earphones sound great and have a firm fit, they aren’t without issues. For example, I did have the occasional lag and jitter when listening to music. Also, note that since it comes with such a compact form factor, you can’t really obstruct its field of view. A simple act like covering your ears with your hands is good enough to break the connection for a few seconds.

That said, in my day to day usage, apart from experiencing patchy streaming a few times, I didn’t really have any significant issues. Most of the time, the playback was smooth and jitter free and that’s good enough for me. It’s worth mentioning that I find the OnePlus Bullets wireless to have better connectivity than the Meizu POP earphones. However, it’s not really a deal breaker and I still find the POP to be superior in the overall experience.

Another thing worth noting, which is not really an issue with this headphones, rather an issue with true wireless earphones design in general, is that I find it tough to talk to people with the headphones on. As mentioned above, thanks to its noise-canceling feature, it’s hard to hear what the other person is speaking with the headphones on. This means you have to remove them when you are speaking to someone for a while. This brings the big question of where to tuck them away during this time. I have had instances where I had to hold the earphones in my hand for some time because I was not comfortable keeping them in my pocket for extended durations. It’s so light and compact that I’m always afraid that I ‘ll lose one of them accidentally. Also, if you are outside without your bag, it doesn’t make sense to carry the charging case around. This means the best place to keep your earphones is going to be your pocket. Personally, I am not comfortable doing that. But it could be just a personal thing.

Another thing that I don’t like about the earphones is its microphone. Simply put, the microphone sucks and it’s not meant to be used to talk on the phone. But you have a tweak. All you have to do is remove the right earphone and place it near your mouth. This way you can talk for hours, but it’s not really a handsfree experience. It’s definitely one of the drawbacks of its design.

Meizu POP TW50 Earphones Touch Controls

One of the highlights of the Meizu POP TW50 earphones is the touch controls. They work pretty well, but there’s a small learning curve. You just have to know four main controls. Single tap pause/play the track. Double tap on the right earphone takes you to the next track and the same action on the left one takes you to the previous track. Triple tap on the earphone would start your google assistant. Finally, long press the right/left earphone to increase/decrease the volume.

These controls are written clearly on the manual. The additional info that you need to know is that the earphones better work with firm presses than taps. Single tap to play and pause a track seemed to work flawlessly on my unit. However, I had a really hard time figuring out how to make it go to the next/previous track. Double tap simply paused/played the track on most occasions. It took me a while to figure out that I had to firmly press the right/left earphone twice to actually make it move one track forward / back. So, you’ll need some practice to get it right all the time. Imagine doing this while running — it’s definitely not as easy as clicking a physical button. But once you get used to the controls, things do get better.

I have to note that the headphone does well to avoid accidental touch recognition. So if you are just adjusting its fit, it does well not to interfere with your music playback.

Meizu POP TW50 Earphones Battery

What is one of the biggest highlights of the earphone is also its biggest drawbacks. The POP comes with a true wireless design, which means there’s not a lot of room to fit in a large battery.

Each earphone carries a battery capacity of 85mAh and the charging case comes with a total capacity of 700mAh. According to official figures, this is good enough for 3 hours of continuous music playback on the earphones in a single charge. With the case included, you can get four more complete charges. However, at a time, you get only up to 3 hours of continuous playback. I have personally managed to get just over 3 hours of music from these earphones, which is pretty much what’s mentioned in the official description.

It seems as if the four indicators on the charging case are like four charge cycles. With each full charge, you lose one indicator. It’s pretty neat.

Since I didn’t find any official figure for the time taken by each earphone to charge inside the unit, I decided to check it out myself. In my personal experience, the earphones charge up to 60% in 30 minutes inside the charging box. They get to nearly 100% in an hour. However, the 700mAh charging box took some time to charge completely. I had to keep it on a fast charging USB brick for nearly 3 hours to get it from 0% to 100% (all four indicators are lit up!). You can even charge it wirelessly, however, I didn’t have a wireless charging base with me at the time of review, so couldn’t test it out in action.

Meizu POP TW50 Earphones: Who should buy it?

After reading this Meizu POP Earphones review, I guess you must have a fair idea about its targeted audience. The earphones are ideal for someone who wants non-intrusive wireless Bluetooth earphones which looks good, works flawlessly, and good for playback up to 3 hours. It’s not at all ideal for people who are hooked on music or movies for extended hours. Remember that there’s nearly an hour’s delay if you want to use your earphones once it goes out of charge. However, I believe for most users out there, 3 hours of continuous playback with 1-hour charging cycle inside the case is pretty decent.

If you are okay with the battery life of the Meizu POP, I would definitely recommend it over the OnePlus Wireless Bullets headphones. I know its cheaper and widely available than the POP, but POP’s design definitely looks futuristic, the sound quality is great, and the overall experience is worth the additional money.

We managed to get a special coupon for our readers on gizmochina. If you are interested in getting the Meizu POP earphones, you can currently get it for just $69.99 which is a solid deal for its sound quality! Just use the coupon (valid for first 50 buyers!): 1QDn0IWm and head over to Gearbest to order the earphones. 

Meizu may not be as popular as Xiaomi or Huawei, but it knows how to make quality products. The company started off as making music players so it definitely knows its stuff. The Meizu POP is yet another prime example of how the company is offering solid value for money with its products. In case you missed our Meizu 16th review, do check it out from below.

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On Sunday, April 22, Meizu will announce its new flagship phone – the Meizu 15. The Meizu 15 will come along with Lite and Plus variants, but the three phones may not be the only products launching that day.

A new teaser on Meizu’s official Twitter page hints at the launch of new earphones too. The tweet which was posted yesterday says “A new sound. One week left” and includes a photo which has an audio theme.

A new sound. One week left. pic.twitter.com/XnR9nCs803

— MEIZU (@MEIZU) April 15, 2018

Last year, when Meizu announced the Pro 7 and Pro 7 Plus, it also announced the Meizu Flow earphones. The Meizu Flow is a pair of wired earphones created together with the Institute of Acoustics and Japanese designer Kosho Tsuboi.

The Meizu Flow has an upgraded version called the Meizu Flow Bass earlier this year. Both the Flow and the Flow Bass are available on Meizu’s site for the same ¥599 (~$95) price.

READ MORE: Meizu 15 Lite May Offer Snapdragon 660 For An Extremely Low Price

The new Meizu earphones may also be wired since it doesn’t seem Meizu is ditching the 3.5mm audio jack soon. Whatever the price may be, we guess buying it along with the any of the Meizu 15 phones will get you a discount.

(Source)

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Meizu is a known brand among Chinese smartphone fans, but many don’t know that the company first started out as an MP3 Player manufacturer. Hence, it does have a few years of experience in this field, and it’s trying to bring this experience on to the Meizu HD50 on ear headphones. It’s been quite a while since this headphone was first announced, but it’s still a popular buy among customers because of its cheap price and quality. So, read on to find out whether the Meizu HD50 is really a great on-ear headphones for just $50. Gearbest is currently running some kind of promotion for the headset which is why the price is discounted to $50 from the usual $55-$60 price tag.

UNBOXING

The Meizu HD50 Headphones comes in a premium packaging. The box is pretty simple, but once you open it, you’ll find another translucent plastic box inside with the words “For the lovely ones, Designed by Meizu”.

I must say that the packaging is pretty neat and I love that the company has put so much thought into the overall package.

Open up the plastic box and you have a nice looking black case inside, which contains the headphones. The case is quite sturdy (good for carrying the headphones) and feels premium. Inside, the Meizu HD50 headphone is placed neatly, with a long 3.5mm jack wire and an additional adapter to connect to your larger audio equipments. Overall, I would give full points for Meizu in the packaging department. In addition to this, you also get a manual, which I personally didn’t care to read. I was quick to remove the headphones from the box and plug it into my computer.

You can take a look at the unboxing pictures added in the gallery below.

DESIGN

The first thing you notice about the Meizu HD50 headphones is that it screams quality. The company seems to have thought about the design thoroughly, making it user-friendly and beautiful to look at. The moment you look at these headphones you know that they are premium. The company has really nailed it in the design department, featuring a premium metal body and super soft ear cushions. The synthetic leather feels and looks great.

Carrying the headphones around is also super easy, thanks to its multi-angle folding design. The black case is also sturdy making sure that the headphones inside are well protected. The wire disconnects from the headphones, which is once again handy to carrying it around.

You also get a larger adapter (for plugging into your bigger audio equipments) in the box.

Further, the quality of the three buttons (Volume +/- and Play/ Pause) are top notch. They have a nice clicky feel, which is great. The connectors on both the sides of the wire are also well built, making sure that it won’t break in your everyday use.

To sum it up, the quality of the Meizu HD50 headphones is amazing for its $50 price tag. Check out the gallery below for taking a look at its beautiful design.

FIT

The Meizu HD50 Headphones sits comfortably on your ears for long periods of use. I personally didn’t find any irritations using it for a couple of hours, but stretch that limit and you may feel like taking a break. I initially thought my glasses could turn out to be an issue, but it posed no problem while listening on the headphones. Just make sure you wear the headphones correctly (there are left (L) and right (R) markings inside the ear cups) to ensure a perfect fit.

You can extend both the sides to a considerable extent to make sure that the headphone fits everyone including people with relatively large heads. However, people with small heads could face some issue getting the perfect fit. But that, I guess, is a problem with every on ear headphones.

SOUND QUALITY

For $50, the sound quality of the Meizu HD50 headphones is great. Now, remember, we are talking about the quality output relative to other headphones in this range.

In the few days I have been using this headphones, the HD50 produced great lows. However, the bass is not too heavy to interfere with other levels. You get a crisp loud thumping sound, which I feel is great. Now there are some headphones in this range that product too much bass, but this one manages to keep the bass levels in control, giving you great output, especially for EDM music.

The mids are quite decent as well, but I would have liked the headphones to product better treble. I personally think that the treble output lacks detail. But if you factor in everything, the overall sound output from the HD50 headphones is quite good.

Because of the average treble and mids, you may not be entirely immersed in the music. Don’t get me wrong, the output was great for a $50 headphone, but I often felt that there was something missing in the overall experience. To be honest, how much immersive experience you get from these headphones really depends on the songs you listen to. Bass heavy songs with limited vocals sound great, but there are some songs that I felt wasn’t entirely justified by these headphones. Still, even these songs sound pretty decent.

Noise isolation is great, as the only sound you’ll hear is the output from the two earcups.

It is worth noting that the Meizu HD50 comes with a microphone and its clarity is good, as the person on the other side could hear me very clearly.

VERDICT

For $50, the Meizu HD50 turns out to be quite a good option. While I feel the sound quality of the headphones could have been more immersive, what’s really the highlight of these headphones is its looks.

The HD50 looks so much better than many of the competitors in this range (most are large, with plastic built) and that itself is one good reason to go for these. The sound quality is also decent and I feel most of the users would be happy with its output.

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Meizu has been known to a lot of people mainly because of its huge smartphone portfolio. However, the company produces all sorts of gadgets and the EP2X earphones are one of them. After testing this headset for quite a bit of time, we believe it brings a lot of value to the table as it offers very good sound quality, it is comfortable to wear and it can be bought for just 129 Yuan ($18) in China . Learn more in our full review.

Official Product Page

Official Product Video:

[embedyt] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duCzvtH8hmg[/embedyt]

Meizu EP2X Earphones Review: UNBOXING

The earphones ship in quite a premium box. Also, you get a high-quality hard plastic travel case.

Meizu EP2X Earphones Review: DESIGN and FEATURES

The earphones are made of glossy plastic and the build quality is top-notch. The earphone sports a streamlined tail-pipe, which is made to assure a great comfort while using the headset.

The cable is tangle-free and it looks and feels high-quality too.

We have a built-in controller, which allows you to play/pause, skip tracks, control volume and answer the calls via the mic. The controls work well with the Android phones I tested – Samsung Galaxy S7 edge, Xiaomi Mi 5s and LeEco Le Pro 3. In addition, the controller works fine with my iPad Air.

The call quality is actually very good. I’ve made like 20 calls using this headset and none of the people had any complaints.

The headset jack is the L-shaped. I always prefer the I-shaped jacks but I can also live with this one.

Meizu EP2X Earphones Review: SOUND QUALITY and COMFORT

Meizu put a lot of work into these earphones to make sure they deliver excellent audio. The speaker diaphragms are made of micro bio paper fibre,  the edge diaphragm is made of high compliant TPU materials, the unique free-edge design helps reduce distortions and enhance the deep, booming bass. 

But how that tech talk translates into the real-life listening experience? Well, it is indeed pretty good considering the low price of this headset. You should not expect any Hi-Fi qualities but the sound is rich, crisp and pronounced. In addition, there is a pretty decent balance between mids, highs and lows. However, you should not expect the same amount of bass as using the classic in-ear earphones that make a good seal between your eardrum and the earbud. Still, I believe this is one of the best-sounding headsets in its class I’ve tested so far.

When it comes to comfort, the Meizu earphones are designed in the way “one size fits all”. There is no need to look for the right size of earbuds or anything. The headset is comfortable to wear and it stays firmly in the ears while moving around or shaking your head.

Meizu EP2X Earphones Review: CONCLUSIONS

The Meizu EP2X earphones do bring quite a lot of value to the table since they are made of high-quality materials, they sound great and they are comfortable to wear.

Also, for the price of just $18 in China, you get a nice travel case. Finally, the Meizu earphones can be highly recommended since we haven’t noticed any shortcomings that could be a dealbreaker.

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We have been consistently hearing about Meizu entering in a partnership with a well known audio brand for its new range of headphones. Initially, it was said that the company could be working with AKG for its new product. However, earlier today, Meizu revealed that the company is all set to partner up with the German Audio company, Beyerdynamic.

Beyerdynamic released a new image of the Meizu headphones box via their weibo page, where we can clearly see both the company names mentioned on top. Also, this is the same box that was leaked a few days back, however at that time, it didn’t have the beyerdynamic logo.

The box looks quite big, so it is also being said that Meizu will be selling its new headsets along with its smartphones. But, don’t expect it to be cheap. Given that the headphones are going to targeted at audiophiles, it will probably be more than $500. In fact, Meizu also revealed that this limited edition Beyerdynamic + Meizu headphones are going to be the most expensive product from the company till date.

The company is expected to release the headphones on April 15, i.e. tomorrow. We have the Huawei P8 as well as the Xiaomi Electric Vehicle (?) releasing on the same day, so its going to be an exciting two days for all tech fans.

Meanwhile, today, we will see the launch of at least two LeTV smartphones, one expected to be bezelless. So, stay tuned to the website as we update you guys with more information.

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